Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati never won a tennis men's doubles medal at the Olympics, with Beijing 2008 being their final chance.
Follow Us
For Indian tennis fans of a certain age, the duo of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati evokes fond memories. The celebrated doubles pair were a force on the professional circuit in the late 90s and early 2000s. However, they had never won Olympics gold together. Paes won a bronze medal in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, but that was in the men’s singles event. The two had come close in 2004 but fell agonisingly short in the third-place play-off match. To make things worse, the off-court relationship between the two had several ups and downs. As such, 2008 was seen as their last chance of winning an Olympic medal together.
They did not come as close as they did in 2004, but they only ended up losing to the eventual winners. Of course, that was little consolation for the pair.
Despite them coming close to winning a medal in the 2004 Olympics, this did not bring the two stars closer. On the contrary, the two fell out once again after clashing at the 2006 Asian Games.
That they even played together at Beijing in 2008 was down to plenty of persuasion from then-AITA secretary-general Anil Khanna. Still, the general consensus was they were India’s best bet of a medal in the sport.
After all, they had accomplished much together as well as with other partners. Their credentials spoke for themselves. And what are personal troubles when there is a chance to win a medal for the country?
Still, the warning signs of trouble were there from before the Games itself. Bhupati was struggling with both form and fitness, while the pair had only played two events together prior to the Olympics.
To make things worse, relations between the two were still volatile. As had been proven many times over by this point, they had the ability to self-destruct at the drop of a hat.
As such, the move to pair them up would either backfire spectacularly or be an inspired one. There was going to be no in-between in that regard.
Paes and Bhupati were seeded seventh in the men’s doubles tournament. For the first round, they were drawn against the French duo of Gael Monfils and Gilles Simon.
Both Monfils and Simon were fine singles players in their own right, but a doubles duo they absolutely were not. To make matters worse, they were up against a duo whose bread and butter was doubles.
As such, Paes and Bhupati saw them off 6-3, 6-3 and breezed into the second round. Here, they would face another unseeded doubles pair.
Their next round match saw them go up against the Brazilian pair of Marcelo Melo and Andre Sa. Again, the Indian duo were expected to win with ease and that is exactly what they did.
With the first two rounds out of the way, they were now only a win away from being in medal contention. The third round was the quarterfinals, meaning a win there would get them into the semi-final.
Even a loss in the semis would see them go into the third-place play-off, which is what they had done at 2004. However, this time around there was heartbreak waiting in an earlier round.
In the last eight they were drawn against the Swiss duo of Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka. Again, both were predominantly single’s players – especially Federer, who by that point was a dominant multi-time Grand Slam winner.
Yet there was a bit of history between Lee-Hesh and the Swiss maestro. See, in the previous Olympics, the Indian duo were up against the Swiss pair of Federer and Yves Allegro in the second round. And it was a match they won quite easily.
Yet there was to be no deja vu. Federer and Wawrinka emphatically dispatched the Indian duo 6-2, 6-4 en route to a doubles gold medal.
The loss meant that the formidable Indian duo would crash out without a medal – once again. As things turned out, this would be the last time they ever played together at the Olympics.
In 2012, AITA wanted the two to partner up once again but Bhupati refused. To make things worse, even Rohan Bopanna did not wish to partner with Paes.
The veteran was eventually paired with youngster Vishnu Vardan, although none of the teams were able to capture a medal.
In 2016 Paes and Bopanna would end up playing together at the Games but again, that doubles medal proved elusive.
